2006-present Walt Disney pictures logo Wiki
Welcome to the wiki! This wiki is not your average wiki! This wiki is about one of the best Hollywood studio logos. This is about the 2006-present Walt Disney Pictures logo which was created by Cameron Smith and Cyrese Parrish. Let the world of imagination take you to the real story of the current Walt Disney Pictures logo and what one of the creators do for the logo now! This page is dedicated to the true Disney and logo fans. Describe your topic The current logo was created during the year of 2006, which took six full months. Before the making of the logo, the then current president of the Walt Disney company was talking about the idea of a computer animated logo for quite some time. At the time, the studio was represented by a white segmented logo caused by a flash on a blue background. The logo was good for it's time, which was 1985, but by 2005, it became outdated. In the year 2006, the company began trying to make a fresh new logo. Unfortunately, the company was pre-occupied with the upcoming movie: "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest". Therefore, Disney began to look for a CGI company to make the new logo. Before long, the company discovered Weta Digital Studios, which was best known for making the animation for the "Lord of the Rings" films. Weta agreed to make the new logo and came up with a strategy. The company would have children help them come up with with the concept of the logo and help make it on computer as well. This gave kids a chance to animate along with Mr. Smith and be creative. Of course, this strategy had to be approved by law. After the approval, Cameron Smith along with Michael Pangrazio began to search for creative kids who had experience with animation. At first, it did not seem to be a success. The two members of the Weta Digital company eventually ventured to a class of kindergartners. That is when they meet their hope: Cyrese Parrish. Mr. Parrish was no ordinary kid from the start. In fact, he should have never been in kindergarten. Mr. Parrish had a genius IQ and he had his first laptop when he was four years old. As a young child, Cyrese always was interested in the art of animation and began looking for programs to make creations off his own. Now during this time, Mr. Parrish had been making animations for two years. He had become a young professional. Mr. Parrish also had an eye for something new and beautiful. He was interviewed by Cameron Smith and Michael Pangrazio. When asked what the concept of the vanity plate should be, Mr. Parrish answered: "We should combine classic, but well known Disney elements to make a modern logo". Mr. Smith and Mr. Pangrazio liked the sound of his idea. Later, that night Mr. Parrish stayed up thinking about the elements. It seemed at first no idea came to him. Mr. Parrish said, "At first my imaginative brain was a cloud". But after three hours of animating on the computer, he had decided to go to sleep. And that's when Mr. Parrish started thinking the best. Based on what Mr. Parrish said,"the logo was based on a dream I had that night. It was a third-person perspective dream where I had been flying around the Magic Kingdom castle, with displaying fireworks. It was superlative." Mr. Parrish had dialed the number of Weta Digital and taken about the idea of the camera flying gently through the sky. He said when the camera first fade in, you should see a star, glaring at the screen. A star that resembles the star from "Pinocchio", the 1940's Disney Classic. Then we should fly through the clouds which actually represent "Mary Poppins", in the same way she flew through the clouds with her umbrella. Then we should see the clouds revealing a made-up visionary of Florida, with a large river that shows a distant pirate ship, which is based on "Peter Pan", another Disney classic. What is going across the river is a train, which is actually the "Lilly Belle", a train Walt Disney himself made up and name after his wife. Then the camera brings you back to a glowing castle during the night with fireworks accompanying the castle. After the castle is revealed and the fireworks are over the camera settles on the sight of the castle while a curved line of pixie dust goes over the castle. The remaining pixie dust at the bottom forms the text, "Walt Disney" and then pictures fades in. Mr. Smith told that the actions in the logo sounded "interesting" and in about a month, young Mr. Parrish was off flying to New Zealand to make the new logo. (The logo had been based on Cyrese's dream). When Mr. Parrish first entered Weta Digital, he remarked that this was indeed one of the most beautiful and creative buildings he had seen and that no part of the studio seemed dull. He meets Mr. Smith in the part of the studio called "Weta Workshop". This is where most of the animation happened. Mr. Smith stated that Mr. Pangrazio had already made a storyboard and created a artwork concept that both Mr. Parrish and Mr. Smith had to match when making the logo on computer. The program Cyrese had always seemed to use was Blender 3D. He always had preferred the newer versions for the program. Mr. Parrish and Mr. Smith then discovered a new CGI animation on the program that they use on the logo. The two brilliant animators began the logo and had to face challenges during production. The first challenge was creative challenges now that they had to think deeper about the logo. This was the most thinking that Mr. Parrish had to do,according to him. The second challenge was when production was temporarily put on hold when Mr. Parrish went back to school because the making of the logo was during the school year. Fortunately for Mr. Parrish, he had his laptop and he had discovered a feature on Blender where he would make his parts of the logo and send it to Mr.Smith back in New Zealand while Cyrese was back home in New Jersey. Another challenge is when both creators had to constantly transition the color treatment the logo. Mr. Parrish at one point had to manage the number of frames for the logo (720 frames by the way). When the year 2006 approached June, the logo was nearly finished which Cyrese recalls one of his greatest accomplishments, and he had fun animating with a visual effect artist that was well respected and looked up to: Cameron Smith. The final things the animators had to do was the sky setting which was actually a matte painting above Renderman and Nuke. The firework effects in the logo was the penultimate (next to last) effects in the logo, which was one of the most difficult things to do, according to Cyrese Parrish. The final aspect that had to finished was the fairy dust in the logo. The fairy dust had to start from a dot that appears from the left side of the castle and then moves to the right and finally goes over the castle, drawing a line of dissolving fairy dust. A collection of fairy dust then appears revealing "Walt Disney" with "PICTURES" fading in a second later. This was just as difficult controlling the dust to do its part in the logo. After working with the dust the logo was completely rendered and designed. "It was hard work, and certainly the hardest I have done in my life," recalls Mr. Parrish. The logo was sent to the Walt Disney Studios and edited onto its first film: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest". The logo was surprising to many viewers but was also appalled by those viewers. Mr. Smith and Mr. Parrish had done a good job with providing the new logo. The logo replaced three logos that the company had: the original blue and white logo, a desert orange version of the blue and white logo(which was mainly seen on live action movies), and a CGI version of the blue and white logo, which was all in 3-D (used for only Pixar films). With the logo being a true and popular success, the Walt Disney company had kept it. Meanwhile Mr. Parrish and Mr. Smith went to court and dealt with copyright notices. Mr. Smith was given his part of the copyright for the logo. Mr. Parrish was unfortunately not given his part of the copyright to him yet. This is because he was too young at the time to be given a copyright to him legally. So Mr. Parrish was sent a deal. Since Mr. Smith had to work on other projects in the years, he was going to be very busy these years and he would not have time to have the logo as a responsibility 24/7. Mr. Pangrazio who had created the artwork concept for the logo had other projects to work on in the Weta Digital Studio as well. So this lead to one option: Cyrese Parrish had to look out for the logo. Mr. Parrish had proven his creativity and spectacular animation skills to everyone. Therefore, he was kept responsible for the logo. Mr. Parrish was kept responsible for the logo 24/7 throughout the years, making variants and variations for the logo as well as taking care of the regular logo as well. Today, Cyrese Parrish still makes variants, variations and enhancements to the logo. Mr. Parrish still awaits the year 2018 which he would finally receive the copyright and get paid for every single movie that had used that logo. (He would also get even more money for the variants and variations in the future). Although Mr.Parrish works hard, things have came full circle for him, as he his now doing what he loves most: animating and using his creativity. CLASSIC DISNEY ELEMENTS IN THE LOGO Star-The star in the beginning of the logo is actually a reference to the 1940's "Pinocchio". Clouds-the clouds refer to "Mary Poppins", the legendary 1960's Disney film. Ship-the camera shoots a view of a river when panning downward from the clouds. In the river, there is a pirate ship based on the animated hit in the 1950's "Peter Pan" Train-the train is based on a train model Walt Disney himself created. It's called the "Lilly Belle", and Disney named it after his wife Lillian Bounds Disney in her honor. Castle-Of course, there is no Disney logo without the beautiful castle. The castle is a mixture of the Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty Castles. Fireworks-The fireworks are actually created to remind you of experiences at one of the fourteen Disney Parks around the world. Fairy dust-The curved line at the end is obviously made of fairy dust which refers to the Disney Fairies and to "Peter Pan" again.